


Ripples in Time

by Tarlan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Community: mcsheplets, Episode Related, Episode: s04e20 The Last Man, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-13
Updated: 2008-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-21 14:12:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ripple in time would change everything, he hoped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ripples in Time

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's **McSheplets** Table Prompt #20. Time Travel.

Rodney pressed his hand against the side of the Stargate, feeling it for the first time in twenty-five long years. He'd always known he would return here one day, back to the place that had always seemed more like _home_ than any other place in two galaxies. He hadn't wanted to leave that first time but after John disappeared, nothing had been the same. The IOA directives had tied his hands behind his back, refusing to allow him the time to figure out what had gone wrong.

He had spent several years figuring that out, going through reams of data on solar flares and their impact of gate travel before starting his own calculations based on Sam's early theoretical models from when her former SG1 team had encountered a similar event. Yet the more he looked at the data, the more he realized how dissimilar Sam's time travel was compared to John's.

Twenty-five years later he felt the hum of Atlantis inside his head once more; a soft _welcome home_ that made him shiver in pleasure before the loss hit him hard. Everywhere he looked he saw ghosts of the past; the empty places and shadows dredging up memories of laughter and tears, of frustration and missed opportunities.

"Are you okay, doc?"

"Hmm?" He looked into the fresh-faced youngster dressed in the modern attire of the United Earth Military. "Yes...just remembering..."

He trailed off at the familiar look of indulgence that he'd seen cross Madison's face for her _favorite, grumpy old Uncle Mer_ when he'd ramble on about Atlantis and the people he had once known here.

The weeks passed in a haze of activity and he knew the small research team considered it a little creepy to see holographic images of him popping up in corridors and in the gate room. He didn't care, for if he did manage to bring John back then he would have changed everything, and the ever expanding ripple from that one event would erase this timeline. Twenty-five years of theoretical work gone, and his Nobel Prize, gained for the paper he'd published three years earlier on _Wormhole Physics and its Impact on the Structure of Space and Time_ , lost.

None of that seemed important now, not when he looked back through twenty-five lonely years and the sure knowledge that they had needed John; that **he** had needed John.

The hardest part was stepping back once he had done all that he could, realizing that he might never know how much he had been willing to sacrifice for John. Instead, all he had left was hope that John would make it back with his help, and that the Rodney of twenty-five years earlier would find the courage to take that important step and tell John how much he had loved and wanted him.

As he pressed in the final sequence, Rodney smiled sadly and wondered if anyone truly understood the enormity of what he had set in motion. Twenty-five lonely years behind him and forty-eight thousand years stretched ahead for this universe, and yet if this worked then the ripple in time would erase it all.

His smile softened.

John was worth it.

END


End file.
